


Somnium

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: F/F, Soft Girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 19:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9199151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Illness wakes up from a familiar nightmare.Written for the prompt "somnium: dream".





	

For a long time, Illness has the same nightmare. Night after night after night, the same scene played on repeat; her almost saviors, her father, and the bullet that defines the word _almost _. Every time is the first time. Every time the hope she feels is _real_ , and every time she gets to see it shatter in front of her eyes. __

As time passes, she finds new things to dream about — sharp knives, smoking guns, men with masks, writhing bodies, motionless corpses, death, decay, killing, dying — but still this nightmare pervades. It is something unshakable, the moment of truth when she learns _what_ she is: something destructive, something poisonous, something lethal. Her father’s hand may have pulled the trigger, but she is the reason they died; she has killed many people in the years since, but they were the first.

Illness doesn’t know that she cries in her sleep until she wakes one night to a soft voice telling her _it’s okay_ and finds herself choking out a sob instead of a response.

“It’s okay, I’m here.” A hand runs through her hair slowly, and the voice hums. “You were just having a bad dream, you’re okay now.”

The TV screen glowing dimly behind Claudia makes her look like an angel. She recalls the film they’d been watching — one of her favorites — and it is not enough to stop the flow of tears.

“C-Claudia, I’m s-so sorry —”

Claudia hushes her gently, pulling her close so that her head rests at the crook of her neck.

“It’s all okay, Illness.”

“I d-didn’t want to wake y-you up.”

“That’s not important.”

Lithe fingers continue to comb through her hair, and she does not stop until Illness’s trembling does. With every sob she assures her that she’s okay, that nothing bad will happen as long she’s around — and Illness wants so badly to believe that these words do not echo the ones said to her by the boys that night. She leans into Claudia, reaffirming with every touch that she is still there.

“C-Claudia, please promise me y-you won’t g-go away,” she says the words before she thinks about them, then mumbles. “I-I-I know that I d-don’t deserve it, a-and you don’t _have_ to but I w-want… p-please.”

Claudia pulls back, only far enough to brush away the strands of hair stuck to her face.

“I’m not going anywhere, Illness. I promise.”

She smiles softly, leans her forehead against hers.

“So please, promise to dream something beautiful for me.”

And she does.

When her breathing settles and the nightmare fades, she falls asleep with her head on her shoulder and dreams of Claudia.


End file.
